Detention of third-country nationals in return procedures Figure 3: EU Member States with two upper time limits (month) 20 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 Austria Belgium Bulgaria Germany Shorter time limit Greece Italy Poland Slovenia Longer time limit Source: FRA, September 2010 law providing that an alien can be detained for up to six and exceptionally 10 months within a two-year period.136 In some other countries, courts or other bodies have declared the practice of re-detaining the person illegal. This has, for example, been the case in Portugal137 and Greece.138 By contrast, re-detention can occur in other countries, such as in Malta, where this possibility is explicitly foreseen in the Immigration Act.139 In Belgium, the time is counted by detention facilities and starts anew whenever a foreigner is transferred. Similarly, the objection to an expulsion attempt leads to a new detention decision. Thus, despite the fact 136 Austrian Aliens Police Act at Section 80 (4). The alien has also the right to be issued at no cost a certificate indicating the time that he or she has spent in detention (Aliens’ Police Act, Section 81). 137 In Portugal, the Supreme Court decided that it is illegal to maintain in a detention centre or in prison an illegal immigrant that has already been detained in a Centre of Temporary Detention for 60 days, which is the time allowed according to the law. Supreme Court [Supremo Tribunal de Justiça] available at: http://www.dgsi.pt/jstj.nsf/954f0ce6ad9dd8b980256b 5f003fa814/5d58a7ea0581ce80802573640058fee7?OpenDocument. 138 Similarly, in Greece, the Ombudsmen criticised the practice of “successive” deportation orders and subsequent detention decisions by the administration in order to detain irregular immigrants for another period of three months and considered such practice illegal. See Press release, “Successive deportation in a ‘legal vacuum’. Actions of the Greek Ombudsman to stop successive deportations of aliens”, Athens, 7 January 2008, available online in Greek at: www.synigoros.gr. 139 The Principal Immigration Officer can, irrespective of the order of the Immigration Appeals Board, re-apply administrative detention if he is satisfied that there exists a reasonable prospect of deportation and there are no pending procedures under the Refugees Act. See Immigration Act at Article 25(A)(12). The FRA was, however, informed by the Ministry for Justice and Home Affairs, that in practice, re-detention only takes place once arrangements for return have been made or there are reasonable prospects of imminent removal namely when the documents have been procured or are about to be procured. 34 that Belgian law sets the upper time limit for detention at five months, a man has been detained in the centre of Bruges for more than 13 months.140 Only few EU Member States currently have maximum time limits of 18 months or more. Detention of a period as long as 18 months constitutes a serious interference with a person’s right to liberty. As has been documented outside Europe, long-term detention can also lead to serious mental health consequences for the persons concerned. A recent study in Australia revealed that 40% of those held for two years or longer developed new mental health symptoms. 141 The length of detention pending removal should be 140 Belgium, Aide aux Personnes Déplacées, Caritas International Belgique, le Centre Social Protestant, le CIRE, Jesuit Refugee Service Belgium, la Ligue des droits de l’homme asbl, le MRAX, Point d’Appui, le Service Social de Solidarité Socialiste, Vluchtelingenwerk Vlaanderen (2006), Centres fermés pour étrangers : Etat des lieux, available in French online at: http://www. liguedh.be/images/PDF/documentation/analyses_juridiques/Etat_des_ lieux_sur_les_centres_fermes%20.pdf?766a6a4a76f17874a59bb7f42f2 bb3fa=34024efaaf6f00230dbbba6f3b9027a7, p. 22. See also European Parliament, Report on a visit to closed detention centres for asylum seekers and immigrants in Belgium, LIBE Committee delegation visit to Belgium on 11 October 2007, PE404.456v01-00, available online at: http://www.europarl. europa.eu/meetdocs/2004_2009/documents/pv/714/714008/714008en.pdf. The LIBE delegation concluded that, although the legal limit for the length of detention was fixed at five months with the possibility of extending this to eight months for reasons of public order or national security, in practice, “detention has no limit in Belgium since a new time limit commences when a person appeals against his/her deportation” (p. 3). 141 See J. p. Green and K. Eagar, The health of people in Australian immigration detention centers, University of Wollongong, New South Wales, 2010. The research analysed health records of 720 of the 7,375 people in detention in the financial year 1 July 2005–30 June 2006, with oversampling of those detained for more than three months.